Peregrin
by Gaelcelt
Summary: A Hobbit fairy tale. Slash. Rapunzel meets the Lord of the Rings Slash. Eglantine Took craves some of the apples growing in Farmer Maggot's fields. The price is her son... who later is entranced by Meriadoc Brandybuck.


I own none of these characters. They belong to J. R. R. Tolkien. Peregrin's song is from "Faerie Tale Theatre"'s "Rapunzel" episode.

Slash. The Fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and the world of Middle-Earth are combined. Pippin, confined to a tower by his foster father, is romanced by Merry.

Peregrin.

Once upon a time there lived a Hobbit, Paladin Took, and his wife, Eglantine, who were unhappy because, while they were had three daughters and adored them, they had no son. Paladin wanted very much for somebody to carry the family name on. Finally, Eglantine was pregnant again and could sense that this next child was a boy. The family was overjoyed.

These good people had a little hill near their house, which looked into lovely fields, full of all manner of beautiful flowers, fruits, and vegetables; but few dared to venture far into it, for it belonged to Farmer Maggot, who was hardly a kindly soul to the rest of the Shire, and he had a group of apple trees that he especially cherished growing in the middle of his fields and grew the apples only for himself.

One day Eglantine stood on the hill overlooking the garden, and saw there a glut of the finest apples. "Pippin", they were called, being a pet name for "Peregrin". The apples looked so fresh and green that she longed for some of them. The desire grew day by day, and just because she knew she couldn't possibly get any of them to eat, she pined away and became quite pale and faint. Her husband grew alarmed and said:

"What ails you, my Eglantine?"

"Oh," she answered, "if I don't get some apples to eat out of Farmer Maggot's field, I know I shall die."

Paladin loved her dearly, but knew that she couldn't have the apples. "Eglantine, you know that he grows them for himself." "Then why not steal into the garden? Gather a bunch, he won't miss them." Paladin was shocked at first, but the image of his ailing wife surpassed his opposition to stealing. He thought to himself, _"Come! Rather than let your wife die, you shall fetch her some apples, no matter the cost."_ So at dusk he climbed over the wall into Maggot's garden, and, hastily gathering a sack of apples, he returned with them to his wife. She eagerly took them and ate them hungrily; they tasted so good that her longing for the forbidden food was greater than ever. She began to yearn for more. If she were to know any peace of mind, there was nothing for it but that her husband should climb over the garden wall again, and fetch her some more.

"But Eglantine, I've stolen from him! I can't do it again! He'll have my neck if he catches me!"

"Please, Paladin," she meekly responded, "I feel that I won't be able to endure without more."

So, with reluctance, at dusk over he climbed, but when he reached the other side he drew back in terror, for there, standing before him, was Farmer Maggot.

"How dare you, Paladin Took" he snarled angrily, "sneak into my field and steal my apples like a common thief? You shall suffer for your foolhardiness."

"Oh!" he implored, "forgive me, I did it for Eglantine; she is with child-!"

"With child?" Maggot inquired, caught off guard.

"Yes! She saw your apples from the hill, and she grew such a terrible craving for them that she would certainly have died if her wish had not been gratified. She's certain that it's a lad."

Farmer Maggot looked at him, understanding. "She wanted some apples... why did you not ask me for some, instead of stealing into my garden?"

"Well I-" Paladin stammered, "you don't like to give those apples away, and I wasn't-."

"Therefore since your wife had this terrible desire for fruit..." Farmer Maggot said cooly and then glared at Paladin, snarling, "You became a thief?"

"I love her! I didn't want either of them to die!"

"Love is no excuse, Master Took!" Snapped Farmer Maggot, "But if it's as you say, you may take as many apples away with you as you like, but on one condition only -- that you give me the child."

"What?" Paladin cried in horror.

"You stole from me, and therefore the punishment must be right for the crime. All shall go well with it. I will look after him like a father. Fear not; he will be well-cared for."

Paladin reluctantly agreed to everything he asked. Eglantine was horrified at the thought of losing her baby when Paladin told her what had happened, but she could see that she had not much of a choice, for she had been selfish enough to have her husband steal food for her.

She would not be able to look at an apple again without reeling, and as soon as the child was born Maggot arrived, and having given him the name of Pippin, after the apples, he carried him off, ignoring Eglantine's sobs of remorse and bereavement.

Peregrin grew into the fairest, liveliest lad under the sun, and he and his adoptive father had much fun together. But when Pippin began to blossom into an adult, Maggot, fearing losing his son to a lass, shut him up in a tower in the middle of the forest, locking him in the living space at the top of the tower and sealing the entrance...

"Da! What are you doing?" Pippin shouted in horror from the window. Maggot had a group of Hobbit lads laying mortar and bricks in the doorway to the tower.

"I've decided that it's better for you to live here, Pippin." Farmer Maggot answered him from the ground.

"Let me out!"

"Pippin, no lass or anybody else will be able to touch you up there, nobody will be able to hurt you; you're safe."

The prospect of being shut up there forever frightened Pippin. "But I want to be free!"

From that day forth, Pippin saw only his adoptive father and, being a sprightly, energetic lad, he grew bored and often lonely. Farmer Maggot came to visit daily and to bring food and water to his adopted son, he stood at the foot of the tower and called up to him:

"Peregrin-! Peregrin,  
Let down your hair,"

Pippin's beautiful chestnut hair had not been cut, for Maggot could not bring himself to cut off such exquisite hair, and as a result it had grown amazingly long as the years passed. Whenever he heard Maggot's voice, he wrapped his hair twice around the window-latch and let his hair fall from the window to the ground about twenty yards below, and Maggot climbed up by it. But at first, Pippin refused to do so...

"I won't do it!" Pippin had stated bluntly on the day after the finishing of the wall that sealed the door off.

"Peregrin Took," Farmer Maggot called up to his son, his patience tested, "Do you want to starve?"

"I want nothing from you." Pippin angrily stated, shutting the window in a huff.

Maggot had sighed, defeated, but he knew that Pippin would become hungry and would eventually have to let him up.

He was right; after several days, Pippin, hungry and terribly weakened from his refusal, dragged himself to the window and finally let his hair down.

As the years passed, Pippin continued to grow into a young adult within the tower. He grew sadder with each passing year, thinking of the life that he was missing in the world outside of his prison. Having little to do up there, he turned his attention to his voice and took up singing, letting his voice ring out into the world, hoping that somebody would save him from the home that imprisoned him, but knowing that the hope was in vain.

_I never will marry, _

_Ne'er to take groom nor bride. _

_I expect to live single _

_All the days of my life..._

_O, there's many a change in the winter wind_

_There's change in the cloud's design,_

_O, there's many a change in a young lad's heart,_

_But never a change in mine..._

One day, several years after after Pippin was shut away, it happened one day that a Hobbit lad, Meriadoc Brandybuck, was walking through the forest and passed near the tower. As he drew near it he heard someone singing so sweetly that he stood still, spell-bound, and listened.

_"Who is there?"_ Merry wondered. He strained to see who occupied the tower but saw nobody.

Pippin, waiting for Maggot to come back to the tower, sang to pass the time before Maggot would come. He had little to do and almost nobody to see apart from the birds and insects...

_"As much as I love my Da, he has made life a misery for me."_ he reflected as he sang. Would he live there for life?

Merry longed to see the owner of the voice, but he sought in vain for a door in the tower. He reluctantly turned to go home, but he was so haunted by the song and the sweet melancholy in the voice that sang it that he returned every day to the wood and listened.

_"If only I would reach this lad, I would be happy..."_ Merry thought wistfully as he gazed at the tower, occasionally seeing glimpses of Pippin, _"so sweet he sounds, so sad..."_

Merry, eager to know who lived in this mysterious tower, questioned those living near the forest. He learned that Farmer Maggot kept the tower and was hiding a Hobbit lad there.

_"Farmer Maggot! He raised him?"_ Merry was horrified at the thought that Maggot had raised this lad. But he kept his feelings silent and thanked his informers.

One day, when he was standing thus behind a tree, listening to Pippin singing, he saw Maggot approach. Maggot was not well-liked in the Shire, and Merry was no exception, but he stayed silent and watched, to see what would happen, and he heard Maggot call up to the window:

"Peregrin-! Peregrin,  
Let down your hair,"

Then Pippin let down his flowing tresses, and Maggot climbed up by them. Merry stood there, spellbound at the sight of this cascade of reddish curls.

_"So that's the staircase, is it?"_ mused Merry. _"Then I too will climb it and try my luck."  
_  
So at dusk, as he watched Farmer Maggot disappear into the woods, he went to the foot of the tower and called:

"Peregrin-! Peregrin,  
Let down your hair,"

and as soon as he had spoken these words, down tumbled the thick, auburn hair. Merry shivered with delight as his hands touched the soft curls and tried his best to focus on his climbing than on his eagerness to meet this mysterious lad.

_"How odd,"_ Pippin thought, _"I think not that he forgot anything, but...!"_

Merry's breath caught in his throat. This Hobbit lad was even fairer to behold than he thought.

"Hello..."

Pippin gasped in surprise. "Oh! Who are you?"

"Hush... I'm sorry for frightening you." Merry apologized, gazing shyly at the lad as he climbed through the window, "I am Meriadoc Brandybuck, son of Saradoc Brandybuck. Who are you?"

"My name is Peregrin, although my father says nothing of our family name." Pippin replied, feeling somewhat calmer. Something within him stirred as he eyed this Hobbit lad, from his golden curls and blue eyes to his impish smile.

"I heard you singing as I was walking in the forest several weeks ago and I heard you singing... your voice... it captured me, it set my heart aflame... I returned every day to hear you, in hopes that we would meet..."

Pippin gazed at him, taken by these words. Merry noticed this and gazed at the mixture of wonder and amazement on Pippin's lovely face, savoring every inch of the image of him.

Pippin broke out of the reverie and hastily began to draw his hair back up when he felt Merry's hands near his own, assisting him in pulling his tresses back up. Pippin smiled and blushed at this gesture, not sure what to think.

Merry gently but firmly brought Pippin's hand to his lips in a soft kiss. Pippin was overwhelmed with emotion and felt the need to sit. Merry knelt beside the chair and spoke to the bashful Hobbit. "Yes, perhaps it is foolish, since we have met but this evening... but you have haunted my mind ever since I heard you singing. Such longing, such sweetness, and I ached to meet you. Now that I have, I'm not sure how to say it..."

"To say what?" Pippin's jade eyes looked inquisitively into Merry's.

"That I love you..."

From that moment, they saw each other every night, forming a fast friendship that quickly blossomed into love. They spent the nights wrapped in each other's arms. Pippin rejoiced when he heard Merry's voice ring from the ground below his window. Dashing to the window, he eagerly would let Merry up, meeting each other with a mad embrace.

"How shall you be free from this tower?" Merry asked Pippin as they were cuddling one evening.

Pippin, resting his head on Merry's breast, reflected on this, knowing how difficult that it would be to escape. "My hair is the only way in and out."

"Then we'll cut it." Merry smiled.

"No Merry!" Pippin gasped, startled, "I've never had my hair cut!"

"Pippin," Merry smiled as he looked at the face that he adored, "it won't hurt, and your hair will grow long again in time."

Pippin's face clouded over with apprehension. "But Da... he said that it would bring bad luck to me... that the day that my hair would be shorn would be the worst day of my life..."

Merry sighed, thinking, but Pippin quickly broke the silence. "Yes... bring some lengths of rope and I'll tie them into a ladder."

Merry gazed at him lovingly, but his face became serious, "But it will take time, Pip; your father will discover us."

"This tower is quite big; there's many hiding places. I know how to hide things, Merry." Pippin said reassuringly, "Beloved..."

A smile of fondness crept across Merry's face and he drew Pippin close...

They agreed that they would do that and would leave the tower when the ladder was ready. Farmer Maggot, of course, knew nothing of what was going on, as he came only during the day. But one morning, when the ladder was nearly finished, Pippin, as he drew his hair back up, watching Merry fondly as he disappeared into the forest, had accidently dropped an envelope from the window- a letter and a poem that Merry had given to him on a recent visit- and did not notice it. Farmer Maggot, just as he was about to call up to Pippin, noticed the paper sitting not far from the foot of the tower. A chill of dread swept through him as he picked it up and read the contents.

_"Pippin, my beloved Pippin, so fair,_

_Pure emerald that are thine eyes so dear,_

_Locks and curls of silken cinnamon hair,_

_Thy breast whiter than cream, music to hear_

_Within from the heart that beats now for me,_

_I rejoice the sheer delight of ev'ning,_

_Locks that I climb, leading mine urge to thee,_

_I rejoice, thy prison we'll be fleeing...  
_

_I shall see you again tomorrow night and the next night and the next until, at last,  
you shall be free from your tower and we shall be together, not to be parted._

_With all of my love,_

_Merry."  
_

A chill shot through Pippin. He'd not heard his father so angry before. He hurriedly let his hair fall to him.

"Da? What is it?" Pippin could sense danger growing as he looked at his father's face.

"Why you horrid lad," Maggot bellowed as he climbed into the room, crumpling the paper in his hand, his face as red as a tomato, "How could you do such a thing? I thought I had hidden you safely from the whole world and from anybody who would take you, and you have deceived me and turned out to be one of _them_!"

_"That paper-! I must have dropped it!"_ Pippin's heart sank in realization, _"He knows!"_

"I meant not harm, Da-!" Pippin stammered, backing away from Maggot. Maggot forced Pippin into a chair and wound his hair around him tightly.

"That does it!" Maggot snarled, grabbing Pippin's tresses in one hand and grabbing a pair of scissors with the other, "We'll see how much he loves you now!"

"No!" sobbed Pippin. But it did no good... in a swarm of viscious snaps, his russet locks fell to the floor, group by group. The furious Maggot ignored Pippin's sobs as he savagely cut his hair short. Before Pippin realized what was happening, Maggot had hit him hard over the head with a book. Gathering Pippin's shorn hair and attaching the end of it to the window-latch, Maggot then picked up his unconscious son and climbed out of the window with him.

Maggot, with the still-unconscious Pippin still over his shoulder, carried his son further into the forest and left him there to fend for himself.

That night, Farmer Maggot lie in wait for the one that had corrupted his son.

_"Peregrin, my Peregrin,  
My darling one so fair,  
Peregrin, my Peregrin,  
Let down your auburn hair,"_

Merry sang as he eagerly awaited seeing Pippin. Pippin's locks fell from the window to meet Merry, but as he took hold of Pippin's hair, he faintly noticed that it felt cold and lifeless, but he ignored the odd sensation and climbed to the window.

"Meriadoc Brandybuck! I've got you!" Maggot fumed, bursting from the shadows as Merry entered the room.

"Farmer Maggot! What have you done with Pippin?" Merry angrily approached the stout farmer.

"Nothing... compared to what I'll do to you for corrupting my son!" Maggot lunged at Merry. The younger Hobbit dodged the blow, hitting his rival as hard as he could, but Maggot was too strong. Merry decided to end the fight and started backing to the window. When Maggot tried to strike Merry again, Merry grabbed him and threw himself from the tower, taking Maggot with him as he fell...

All that he could see was darkness. The cruel branches of the bush that cushioned his fall had also scratched his eyes out. While Merry was sore from the fall, he could stand. But he was blind. He wept in despair. How would he find Pippin now...?

Pippin sighed as he glanced about at the trees. His hair, which had been cropped short, had grown back, and just kissed the nape of his neck. Still, what good was it to him? He had managed to survive from the berries, mushrooms, and wild apples that grew about him... and still he wondered what good it would do if he would never see Merry again. At least a year ago that it was when Maggot had cast him out, and worrying as he thought about Merry, his despair deepened.

_"Merry... how will you find me...?"_ he tried to swallow the lump in his throat and forced himself not to think of the one that he loved.

He knew that the forest had to end somewhere... but he couldn't leave; Merry would be wandering forever and never find him. The pain in his breast sharpened and he buried his face in his arms.

Merry wandered about, feeling for anything that might trip him.

_"Perhaps I should give up..."_ he thought in misery, but then he thought of the face that he held so dear and vowed to keep walking. Suddenly, he heard the sound of singing, in a sweet, wistful voice... a voice which seemed quite familiar to him. Recognizing it instantly, he walked eagerly in the direction of the sound as fast as he could.

The sun was setting slowly in the west, casting an orange and pink glow over the land. Pippin, weary from the day, was singing to ease his pain and to relieve the silence around him when he suddenly heard a voice calling his name, a voice that sounded quite familiar.

"Peregrin...? Pippin...?"

Pippin froze. Merry had come! He was so near.

"Merry?" Pippin sprang to his feet, gazing all about for him. "Merry!"

"Pippin!" Merry nearly stumbled as he emerged into the clearing. He felt two arms eagerly thrown about his neck. "Pippin, my love!" He ran his hands through the now short locks, savoring their silken softness. He felt as if his heart would burst as he clasped Pippin.

"Merry...! Your eyes-!" Pippin gaped in horror as he studied Merry's eyes, which were pale.

"Your father, Pippin... he caught me... I'm blind..."

Pippin found himself fighting sobs at the thought of somebody hurting Merry. "Let me hold you, Merry... lie down here in my lap..."

Merry wearily obeyed him, laying his head in Pippin's lap. "I've walked for so long, Pippin," his voice was husky with emotion, "... through the forests, the cold nights... my eyes are blinded ... but I have found you... don't cry, Pippin..."

"I can't help myself...!" Pippin squeaked feebly as he caressed Merry. Several of his tears fell into Merry's eyes...

Merry blinked. Pippin's tears tickled his eyes, giving an unusual, though not unpleasant tingling sensation. His vision suddenly became brighter until he could see. They settled instantly upon Pippin's careworn, tear-stained face.

"Pippin... I can see again! I don't quite believe it, but it's true..."

They embraced madly, holding on as is they were afraid they would be swept apart once more.

"Merry, my Merry-!" Pippin sobbed for joy.

"At last, I'm with you again...!" gasped Merry as he kissed the lad that he had painfully sought...

The Party Field was alive several nights later. Merry's parents warmly welcomed him home and introduced Pippin to his birth parents, who readily accepted him.

"Merry, you've found our son! Bless you!" Eglantine cried as she embraced him.

"You've taken good care of him. He's yours now as well as ours." Paladin added.

Merry looked at Pippin, who stood nearby, smiling shyly, but looking radiant. Joy filling his being, Merry brought him close for a kiss...

And they lived happily ever after...

_Finis._


End file.
